Maxim On Board With Apple Publishing Service

The publisher of the men’s magazine on Thursday said Maxim will adopt the new subscription service from Apple Inc. The offering has been met with considerable skepticism since the consumer electronics giant unveiled it earlier this week. Several large magazine publishers deemed Apple’s conditions too restrictive and have opted to stay on the sidelines while they push for more favorable terms.

Maxim joins Elle and Popular Science among a select few that were ultimately undeterred.

“We understand that Maxim can be consumed in many different ways and on many different platforms and it is our job to serve our audience wherever and however they choose,” said Ben Madden, Maxim’s chief revenue officer.

Media companies are balking at the new service in part because Apple made it optional for app-buyers to share their information with publishers, who say such data is critical to generating revenue from their digital audience.

Apple also is requiring that publishers let customers buy subscriptions through Apple’s service for the same price or cheaper than what’s available directly from the publisher. Apple takes a 30% cut of all those sales.

Maxim launched on the iPhone last February and on the iPad in April. The magazine said in the last six months, it has averaged 10,000 downloads per month on Apple devices.

Details on pricing for its subscriptions weren’t immediately available.